Mandatory Abortion In Military Service?

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I posted this in the random discussion. It doesn't have to have anything to do with autism.

Oops. I must have put it in the wrong section. Sorry about that.

Which assumptions did I make?

And I said it was an uninformed opinion, but you accused me of pretending like i know what the military is like because I play Call of Duty. I think you're making more assumptions about me than I did about the military or pregnancy.

So I've gotten a lot of replies, most of them negative.

I always have to point out what I did not actually say when I make a post on a controversial topic. Maybe this happens because when people see a post that they think is immoral, they respond emotionally and put me mentally in a group with a lot of other people who have had opinions that they didn't like. Anyway this is what I did not say: I did not say that this is actually a big problem in the military, I did not say that people should not try to use birth control instead of abortions, I did not say that pregnant women are made to fight, and I did not pretend like I have some sort of strong conviction or experience with this. This is all hypothetical.

Most of the replies were from pro-life people, and those that weren't usually talked about how to avoid getting pregnant rather than what to do if someone does get pregnant (I thought it was kind of obvious that women don't try to get pregnant in service, so I didn't say it). So unless you're already pro-life, I don't think I saw very many good arguments against my suggestion. I really don't see how killing a ball of meat the size of a pea is that terrible a price to pay when you have already made a commitment to kill (and possibly be killed) fully-developed human-beings on command. I don't view early abortion as any different from removing a pea-sized tumor.

And the fact that abortion prevents a human-being doesn't really mean that much to me, because if preventing a human from existing is as bad as murdering one that is already here, then it is morally inexcusable for women to abstain or use birth control. Every period marks the death of a potential human.

I just now looked this up, and it turns out that the military did research on this and it looks like roughly 5% of service women are released prior to their end of obligated service due to pregnancy each year. So it is actually a much bigger problem than I thought when I originally posted.

And this isn't some feminist/sexist issue. I didn't address the men who get these women pregnant because making a woman pregnant does not decrease a man's ability to perform his duty, it just makes him a jerk. Also it is likely that a lot of these men aren't in the military and/or are unknown to anyone but the pregnant woman.

It is boring if everyone agrees with me, so I like to post subjects that I am not sure about. Thank you for all of your replies, also to the people who don't like me.

Considering there is debate about whether people should even be allowed to have abortions I don't think forcing abortions is going to fly in anyone's books. This idea is against both Pro-life and Pro-choice.

I am a pro-lifer. But I don't pop arteries - that would kill.

I don't think it should have to be mandatory. I always think a woman should have a choice and should she become pregnant, she should be allowed to go home and have her baby if she wants to.

Slight tangent here but oh well:

"Pro-life" is one of the most disingenuous phrases I ever heard. It carries the implication that if you aren't "pro-life" then you must be "pro-death" or "anti-life" which really is not the case. It's a very snide attempt to dehumanise those people who might not even support abortion as such but perhaps just see it as an occasionally necessary evil.

I understand where you are coming from. I understand how the term can be used to dehumanize and slander people who respect life but hold the views that you just described.

I call myself pro-life in that I believe that a fetus inside a womb is a life. Therefore, I'm pro-the life that I recognize en vitro.
Someone who doesn't believe it's a life early in gestation, (or whatever view they hold) is still pro-life, because you can have a different view of when life begins and respect and support that life when you believe it begins. There's just not another good or recognized term to use, but I understand the disgust at the blatant and blind terminology. The only "pro-death" people I believe exist are the psychotic serial killers and those in the past who have orchestrated mass-murder. Even then, they still hold life to be of value, but it's twisted.

No one who supports abortion is pro-death. They're demonstrating support of life in a completely different way.

In the end, it's really just a difference between opinions of when life begins and when it's to be treated as such, not a life and death debate. People forget that and the issue goes nowhere.

What I meant was that all the anti-abortion lobbyists would furiously object to it very much and would do their best to not let anything like this pass as law, AND I reckon they'd be successful. They're trying to make abortion illegal (I think it already is in some US states isn't it? Georgia was the last I heard), yet on the other hand we'd have others proposing compulsory abortions for specific groups of people? As someone said above it's not like the majority of the military is out there on the front line in combat, most could be sitting in office chairs. Should we propose compulsory abortion for them simply because they're employed by the military?
At the end of the day it's just another public service job. Why should pregnant women in other types of jobs get benefits and female military personnel not?

I'm only pro-choice to a degree; all the eugenics stuff surrounding disabilities and prenatal testing kinda makes me a bit anxious about abortion. And then there's all the "designer baby" stuff which I don't agree with.

Not necessarily. The point at which the fetus' life begins is irrelevant to my stance on abortion. I also think it is misleading to discuss this in terms of "life" in general. It's an issue of human life. Plenty of people who oppose abortion hardly care at all about plant and non-human animal life. Those people have no right to call themselves "pro-life." Like someone already said, the term is usually just empty rhetoric.

For me, the question is whether or not this situation occurs enough to even worry about. In order to make it into a highly trained position, especially a high-risk job, a person has to show both skill and responsibility. The dumb, irresponsible kids joining the military don't typically end up in these positions. The people who do end up in them would most likely be responsible enough to avoid unplanned pregnancies. They are also usually the people who really want to be in those positions, have planned their lives around them, and therefore would not want a child to destroy their careers and would willingly get an abortion. The most dangerous jobs in the military are held by men, not women, so that also eliminates much of the problem (unless that changes). People working in/near war zones don't have a whole lot of opportunities (or even interest in, in many cases) for dating and sex anyhow.

In general, yes. From what I understand, a women who becomes pregnant will have the option to separate from the military or continue. If she continues, she can get some time off. But I don't think the military will forcefully re-assign the person. The military splits up families all the time for deployments and routinely gets parents killed; it's sad but it's common, expected, and accepted, so a change in job duty is not going to be a priority for the military. They can't afford make people feel forced to choose between having a family and having a military career; they'd be hurting for people to join even more than they are now. So they work around it. Military members do have some leeway in asking for re-assignment if they've been in the service for a while, I think.

There are the same options available to other single working women: get care from family, friends, or non-military child care centers, some of which do operate 24 hours a day. Changing shifts is also a possibility. It can be worked out with one's supervisor, just like at any other job.

On the basis of being a parent, no. Parents get deployed all the time. If there is no one else to care for the child? I don't know, there may be a way to appeal the deployment decision in extreme cases. As far as I know, military benefits would not change.

It's good to see that some of the people (for clarity: you in this case) who choose to consider themselves pro-life can hold a nuanced, reasoned and non-judgemental opinion on the topic. I'm of the opinion that very early abortions can be acceptable sometimes. If the pregnancy is going to destroy somebody's life and we are talking about a bundle of cells or not much more than a bundle of cells then I can live with it. People getting repeated abortions because they don't use birth control is abhorrent even at the bundle of cells stage of foetal development. I find the idea that some countries allow late-term e.g. third trimester abortions unbelievable and also abhorrent. Those are actual babies who would almost certainly survive. Just wait the three months and give it up for adoption ffs. I can't believe that the people administering that kind of abortion can sleep at night.

Edit: Perhaps by the definition you stated I would be considered pro-life but I suppose I just don't like the idea of being in any way associated with the pro-life lobby type.